


thumb against heart

by roselatte



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-29 19:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17209259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselatte/pseuds/roselatte
Summary: Everyone has something different to say, but in the end, the answer is always the same.





	thumb against heart

**Author's Note:**

> me again -_- lmk if the rating needs to go up??

  
  
“I’m going to propose to Ronan.”  
  
He wasn’t planning on saying it, nor did he expect it to be so easily spoken. But he’s been carrying around the feeling of it for three years, and the words for several months and the grey underside of the Pig is friendly.  
  
There’s a clatter and a wrench lands on the asphalt, close to his knee. Adam rolls out from under the Pig and Gansey is staring down at him. Then at the wrench. Back at him.  
  
“What?” The question ends flat.  
  
“I’m going to propose to Ronan.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Adam sits up, dusting off his jeans. “I wanted you to know, so you’re not surprised when you see him with a ring on his finger.”  
  
“How do you know he’s going to say yes?”  
  
Adam picks up the wrench carefully. “I’m being optimistic.”  
  
When he looks at Gansey again, he’s finally caught up with the conversation, and his face is stricken and apologetic. “Of course, he’s going to say yes, Adam—I don’t know why I said that, there’s no question he’ll say yes, I’ve had daydreams about your wedding, I planned speeches—”  
  
“You’re fine, Gansey,” Adam cuts in, compassion overwhelming his amusement.  
  
Gansey heaves a trembling sigh. “I’m happy. I really am. It’s great, Adam. What a pair.”  
  
Adam fits his ring finger into the notch of the wrench. “Right? He better not freak out like you.”  
  
“I would not have freaked out if you asked me to marry you.” Gansey’s face is still doing some complicated maneuver, morphing from shock to happiness.

Adam shrugs. “I meant because of me. I’ve been freaking out since I decided. Before I decided. I’ll be freaking out when I ask him. We can’t both freak out.”  
  
“You can,” Gansey says, with a degree of sageness indicating he’s proposed many times, “and you will.”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
He runs his ring finger through the wrench, like Ronan might under an arch or a cluster of trees, or not at all; he couldn’t get ahead of himself.  
  
“You want to know what I think?”  
  
Gansey has a track record of giving him unsolicited advice, most of which has not been great.  
  
Since he’ll tell Adam what he thinks regardless, Adam obliges. “What do you think?”  
  
“You should warm him up to it. Some romantic brainwashing.”  
  
“And you chose not to be a politician.”  
  
Gansey ignores the jibe. “Get a Mr. and Mr. mug set, start wearing tuxes, watch wedding movies together.”  
  
“I got a Costco membership for him. Nothing says I’m gonna marry you one day more than that.”  
  
“Adam. Adam, Adam.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Gansey’s eyes are uncomfortably shimmery. “I wish you could see your face when you said that.”  
  
“The Costco membership part?”  
  
“No, not that part.”  
  
Adam diverts. “You’re taking this better than I expected.”  
  
“If you recall back to three minutes ago, I actually did not.”  
  
“I was looking forward to a don’t-hurt-him kind of speech.”  
  
Gansey’s face shutters. He is quiet as he walks over and quiet as leans against his car. He’s quiet as he takes the wrench from Adam.

He’s quiet until he says, “that’s not my place.”  
  
“It’s not,” Adam agrees. “I was still expecting it.”  
  
“All you’ve done is keep him safe, you’ll have no problems keeping each other safe for life now.”  
  
“Too much, man. Is that from one of your speeches?”  
  
Gansey’s smile wobbles. “It’s a good line, isn’t it? I’ll hold on to it.”  
  
The rest of the car-fixing is awkward because Gansey remains on the brink of tears. By the time Adam is ready to leave, he’s pulled himself together enough to weakly tease, “whose best man will I be?”  
  
Adam pats his shoulder and offers him a benign smile. “We’ll let you know if you’ve made the invite list.”  
  
The shitbox is only the shitbox in appearances. Its insides are made of various parts Adam builds and repairs, and Ronan dreams and tosses. It drives smoothly, although Adam messed something up and now it shudders when he turns the key. As the car starts, Ronan’s music fades in, abrasive and soothing, always at a subtle volume. The radio is one of the dreamt things, playing whatever he needs. Sometimes it’s just silence, like Ronan’s hands, cool and steady, cupping over his ears.  
  
It’s a fifteen-minute drive from Blue-Gansey’s modern New York hotel to Adam’s subdued New York apartment. He passes by Target, and does not pick up a mug set. Nothing good comes out of following Gansey’s advice  
  
He parks his car next to a black BMW. He sits inside for a few minutes to scroll through a couple of top ten lists of romance movies. With wedding themes. Just because.  
  
Adam goes up the familiar, murky carpet stairs to the unassuming, two-bedroom apartment he shares often enough to split the rent. The door clicks open with his key and a spotted snout pushes through the crack.  
  
Adam smiles and sidesteps in. He drops his keys on a nibbled, woven basket—a Fox Way housewarming gift—and picks up a roped dog toy next to it. Molt nudges at his shins insistently until he reaches down to flop her ears over her eyes.  
  
“Honey, I’m home,” he coos and Molt’s tail wags.  
  
“In the kitchen,” Ronan calls.  
  
“I’m talking to Molt!”  
  
“Fuck you, then.”  
  
He scratches his nails lightly over the center of Molt’s head; she goes cross-eyed and her tail is a blur behind her. He switches his hand out for the toy, tapping her with it twice before tossing it in the direction of the living room.  
  
She makes a full turn for it, and Adam makes a half turn for the kitchen.  
  
There’s a mix of vegetables cooling in a saucepan. Ronan has the oven door open, sprinkling something green over the chicken. It’s toasty and delicious. Adam leans against the archway and watches. He knows Ronan knows he’s there.  
  
The oven door closes with a slam Adam feels under his feet. Ronan looks at him, and his face is dusted in gold from the string of kitchen lights hovering above them. The corners of his lips curve up into a barely present smile.  
  
“Adam,” he says.  
  
It’s only his name, but Ronan says it like he’s saying the four letters of it, separately and preciously, like his name is dusted with gold as well. He says it like this, every time, and it makes Adam long to hear it, one more time.  
  
Adam taps his knuckles back against the wall. “I’m back.”  
  
Ronan points at his nose. “You got some car shit there, Parrish.”  
  
Adam goes to wipe it off, and on second thought, goes to Ronan and nudges him around so he can rub his nose on the back of his shirt. It leaves a grey smudge and Adam presses a kiss below it.  
  
“Oh sure, my shirt and not a paper towel from one of the fifty rolls you got—” Adam wraps his arms around Ronan and fumbles them up until he can slap a hand against his mouth.  
  
Ronan licks his hand and Adam presses it closer.  
  
“How was your day? Did you go to the restaurant?”  
  
Ronan mumbles against his palm until Adam drops it down to his hips. He locks his hands together there, then unlocks them and rolls circles against Ronan’s hip bones.  
  
“Bad and yes. There was a shitty food critic coming.”  
  
“Oh no.” Adam nuzzles Ronan’s back again, this time for sympathy.  
  
“Cheng did all of the talking, so those fucking stars are still ours.”  
  
“Don’t worry, I think you’re very charismatic,” Adam can’t say this without snickering and Ronan turns around in his arms to kiss the laughter off his mouth.  
  
“Ha ha, asshole. Did you fix Dick’s car?”  
  
There’s a long, slow kiss before Adam can answer. “It’s on life support.”  
  
More kissing follows, and it’s quiet except the rush in Adam’s ears that each of these slow, dragging kisses bring. They make out until Adam needs to duck under Ronan’s head to breathe. And to kiss his neck. He smells delicious too.  
  
“We should watch 27 Dresses,” Adam murmurs against Ronan’s chest, which is a lot easier to say this to than his face.  
  
“Why would I want to watch dresses?”  
  
“No, it’s a movie. It’s about a bridesmaid who keeps wearing bridesmaid dresses but never a wedding dress.”  
  
“Sucks for her.”  
  
“I mean, it ends with her getting married so it’s happy.”  
  
He hums, his lips grazing over Adam’s head, gentle and mindless. Ronan has a hand curled over the back of Adam’s neck; his thumb brushes into the curled ends of his hair.

Adam wants to marry him so badly.  
  
“Want to watch?”  
  
“You already spoiled the ending, so no.”  
  
“Come on, I’m in a rom-com mood.”  
  
“That’s great. We can watch Cutthroat Kitchen.”  
  
“How is that rom-com?”  
  
“The show’s the com, and I’ll massage your feet—that’ll be the rom.”  
  
A massage does sound nice, though Adam hasn’t done any kind of labor to warrant one. Ronan sticks their laced hands in his pocket as they walk through the kitchen.  
  
Adam’s eyes pass over the mug rack. “We could do with more mugs. A new mug set, maybe.”  
  
“Oh yeah, pick some up from Target, Opal loves them. She said the texture was good between her teeth. Isn’t that fucked up?”  
  
“Yeah.” Adam bumps Ronan’s shoulder. “It’s fucked up.”  
  
  
  
He doesn’t mean to tell anybody else after that. Their small group of friends is notable for their loyalty, not advice. But this is the kind of gushy, rosy, nerve-wracking secret that demands a voice.  
  
He’s taking the box of tea from Blue, and somewhere in that transaction, it slips out.  
  
“Oh my god.” In a hush, shocked.  
  
“You too? Is it really that surprising?”  
  
“Too? Who else did you tell?”  
  
“I told Gansey a few days ago.”  
  
Blue rolls her eyes. “No wonder he’s been so sentimental.”  
  
He’s a little touched Gansey kept it a secret. Adam holds the tea box in both hands, to his chest, like this would prevent him from feeling so bare.  
  
“I’m not surprised, obviously. Neither of you are going to find someone else to out-asshole each other.”  
  
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Adam says drily.  
  
“Does Ronan know?”  
  
“We wouldn’t be having this kind of conversation if he knew.”  
  
She rolls her eyes again. “What I'm saying is have you guys talked about marriage? You’re so young.”  
  
Adam hesitates.  
  
(Ronan collapses down next to him, their heavy breathing in-sync.  
  
“We’re doing this forever.”  
  
Ronan smirks, and his hand flutters down Adam’s chest until he slaps at it. “Wait. God, not yet.”  
  
Ronan latches onto Adam’s hand, bringing it to his mouth.  
  
Adam is blissed out but he attempts to continue his last train of thought. “You get it right?”  
  
Ronan rolls over on top of him, his knees squeezing against Adam’s sides, kissing him in a wrecking way that makes waiting unnecessary. “I get it.”)  
  
“Yeah, we’ve talked about it.”  
  
Blue raises a skeptical brow. “You have.”  
  
“We both know that’s where this is going,” Adam says defensively, “there’s no other place it’ll go.”  
  
“That’s too sweet.” Blue grimaces. “You know he’s going to say yes right? Unless he beats you to it, while you’re here gossiping.”  
  
“It’s not gossip when it involves me.”  
  
“But you know he’s going to say yes. You said it yourself, that’s where you’re headed.”  
  
It doesn’t change the fact that Adam will always have the worst outcome stuck in his head. Ronan wouldn’t say no but what if he _did_.  
  
“Adam? Here have some more tea.” Blue pushes two more boxes onto him.  
  
“It’s Ronan’s,” he argues, “he just needs some samples.”  
  
“Whatever, sit down for a minute,” she orders, dragging out a barstool.  
  
Adam complies, though he’s not looking forward to the ensuing conversation. Blue’s advice is only slightly less unhelpful than Gansey’s, but they’re also leaving next week.  
  
“Tell me how you're going to ask him.”  
  
Adam organizes the tea boxes into a neat tower. “I haven’t made any plans yet.”  
  
He has the image of it, the ending part, where he’s on one knee, holding up himself and the ring he’s hiding in a sock in his backpack in a zipper section inside the side zipper section of the main zipper section. Everything before and after that is blank.  
  
Blue’s eyes gleam like she was looking forward to Adam’s lack of preparation. “Something food-related seems like the obvious route.”  
  
She’s looking for a response, so he says, “I’ll ask him over dinner. It’ll be a normal thing.” It won’t.  
  
“A home-cooked meal,” Blue clarifies.  
  
“Look, I’m self-aware, he’s not gonna say yes if I cook.”  
  
“Everything else can be up in the air, but he’s going to say yes,” Blue says, so fervent that he’s warm and abashed.  
  
“I know,” Adam concedes shyly.  
  
She lights up. “You could bake it into some bread! Or cookies! Not even you could mess up cookies.”  
  
Adam gets up hastily, because he has messed up cookies. “I’m going now. Ronan needs these by dinner service.” It’s barely noon, but Blue’s advice is approaching Gansey territory.  
  
Blue points at the tea boxes. “I want credit for those.”  
  
He smirks, shaking his head. “You can talk to him or Cheng about that. I’m not getting involved.”  
  
Ronan’s not home when he’s back, but the fruit bowl is stocked with clementines. He’s on his third when the door opens and the sounds of Ronan tussling with Molt and Chainsaw reaches the crowded dining nook.  
  
Eventually, Ronan comes in and drops a kiss on Adam’s head and his body into a chair. By habit, Adam feeds him the next orange slice.  
  
“I brought the tea leaves. I didn’t think I’d be running errands for you during my final winter break, but here we are.”  
  
“You thought that honeymoon phase shit was gonna last forever? Sorry, you’re old now, Mr. Grad School.”  
  
“I mean, it’s lasting for me.” Adam smiles, and places another slice to Ronan’s mouth, sideways so it looks like he’s smiling too. A tiny orange one. “Good to know where you stand though.”  
  
He could do it now, _we can have another honeymoon phase, let’s get married_ , something like that; he’d only need to fetch the ring. They’re doing a food-related activity, as Blue suggested.  
  
But then Ronan eats the orange, and sucks the juice thoroughly off each of Adam’s fingers.  
  
Apparently, he thinks Adam can focus after that because Ronan puts a hand on his thigh and says, “seriously though, do you want to go somewhere? DisneyWorld? Fuck that place, but also we could get away with saying Opal’s in a costume.”  
  
“This is fine,” Adam manages.  
  
He squeezes a slice between his fingers before eating it and traces those fingers over Ronan’s upper lip, allowing him to suck the juice off, one by one. Ronan’s smile is delighted.  
  
They finish, finally, and Adam pulls off an interlaced, floral webbing of pith from one of the peels. He gives Ronan a pointed look. “Are these dream oranges?”  
  
“Yeah.” He’s eyeing the web. “Hold on.”  
  
He’s gone and back just as Adam starts missing him, lugging a clean, but fondly worn spiral binder in his arms. The first of these binders was Ronan’s gift, a Christmas present during Adam’s freshman year. Their two rules for gifts were nothing over $25 (Ronan’s, because Adam wouldn’t say it), and books and trips being the only viable categories (Adam’s, because Ronan needed limitations).  
  
They're full of photos, ticket stubs and pressed leaves; and some of the pages stick together. A lot of it is writing. One memorable page just has big block sharpie letters stating _I fucking hate Home Depot_ , the source of many phone rants. Other pages are long, depressing letters to make up for long distances, and those are bittersweet to read now that distance isn’t an issue.

The binder Ronan drops on the table is their fourth. It has colorful scraps poking out but it’s neater than the earlier ones. Those are piled up in their bedroom, patchy and rough from constant exchanging between visits, because they’re both still better at most things over talking.  
  
Ronan opens to the most recent, half-empty page. It has several cut-outs of job acceptations with starting salaries that make Adam dizzy. Under the most recent cut-out, beginning with _Dear Mr. Parrish, We are delighted_ and ending along the lines of _fucking hell, Parrish, another full ride,_ Ronan carefully flattens the web in place.

He accepts the fear—in this moment, but also last year, and the year before, and back when he was 18—that comes with the intensity of the happiness gripping him.

Adam kisses the corner of Ronan’s mouth.  
  
This binder is nearing its end.  
  
  
  
Henry Cheng is not someone Adam expects to accidentally tell, but Adam also didn’t expect Ronan to open a restaurant with him.  
  
He has a spare key in for when it’s closed and he tries to sneak through the kitchen, but his footsteps echo and it’s large and granite and reflective. He makes it right by the corner to the office before Ronan notices and tears away from the grouped waitstaff for a kiss.  
  
“You’re so unprofessional.” Adam kisses him again.  
  
“I’m the one in charge,” Ronan retorts. He kisses Adam’s earlobe. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“Dropping off some paperwork for Cheng.”  
  
Ronan groans. “No, for me.”  
  
“Chef Lynch?” someone from the group calls.  
  
Adam’s sure his cheeks match the redness of Ronan’s ears but he raises his eyebrows. “Chef Lynch.”  
  
“Do not fucking turn me on at work.” He tilts Adam’s head down to smack an obnoxious kiss on the crown of his head and takes off.  
  
This is probably why, when Adam is on the other side of the office door, he blurts out, “I’m marrying him.”  
  
“Who?” Henry’s head pokes out from under the table.  
  
“Ronan Lynch.” Adam can feel his mouth doing a weird cross between a smile and a scowl. “Why is he so stupid?”  
  
“Exactly,” Henry says, which doesn’t answer the question, but the support is nice.  
  
Adam settles for a smile. “Here’s the paperwork.”  
  
Henry tosses it carelessly over the desk. “So we’re going to bypass that? The marrying?”  
  
“I’ve already gotten a fair amount of bad advice,” Adam says warily.  
  
“I have none of that to give you,” Henry assures. “But—” Adam’s guard goes back up “—I will say the restaurant is the perfect place to do it.”  
  
“Huh.” Adam flips around the photo frame on the desk. It has a stock photo of a happy family, but Ronan glued all their faces over it.  
  
“Glamorous, Michelin stars, I can set mood music, you can do the ring in the wine glass,” Henry lists off on his fingers. “I really want to see the ring in the wine glass thing in real life.”  
  
“It can’t be here,” Adam says. “That’s like if I ask him to marry me on campus, or at my internship.”  
  
And there would be people in suits and glossy dresses watching them. Adam has his own tailored suit, and there was a time when bespoke tuxes and high-rise apartments were the only nice things to imagine; those things are still nice, but overflowing dining tables with orange peel skyscrapers seem a little closer to home now.  
  
Henry’s face falls, but his smile is sheepish. “I did say I wouldn’t give advice.”  
  
“If it works out, you know you’re already on the guest list.”  
  
“Works out? Parrish, the whole world knows his answer will be yes.”  
  
His face warms up, and he’s run out of words for this, so he smiles again.  
  
  
  
The Lynches aren’t in the business of giving advice, but somehow they’re much more difficult to tell. Perhaps because he is deliberate in telling them.  
  
  
  
He’s allowed in Declan’s office, no questions asked, because saying “Ronan” lets him move past all security.  
  
Declan has the kind of office Adam intends to have in a few years, except he has no plants or hanging lights. On the edge of his table is a glass bowl of mints, with a cursive note stating _help yourself to one mint._ _  
_  
Declan shoots up from his chair. “Adam? Is Ronan okay? Matthew?”  
  
“Everyone’s fine.” Adam takes a deep breath and does not waste time. “I wanted you to know I’m going to propose to Ronan. This weekend.”  
  
Declan blinks, which is not the worst reaction to this.  
  
He blinks again, so Adam surges on. “And if you have any final shitty thoughts you’re keeping pent up, I need to hear them because I don’t care, but Ronan will.” He didn’t intend to be harsh, but everything in Declan’s office is too polished and symmetrical, and he’d like his office to be quite a bit different.

“Sit, Parrish,” Declan says, motioning to a chair.  
  
Adam sits in the unmotioned to chair.  
  
“Okay.” Declan’s eye twitches and Adam wished Ronan was here to share the enjoyment. “To start off, you have my blessing.”  
  
“Didn’t need it.”  
  
“Great, that was my buffer.” He crosses his arms as if he’s in control of the situation. “I do have one shitty thing to say.”  
  
“Go on.”  
  
“One text. Before the two of you go off on a life-threatening adventure. Or whatever. I know you’ll do it.”  
  
Adam doesn’t deny it.  
  
“Texting,” he muses. “That is shitty. If it goes well, I’ll do the texting.”  
  
“Goes well? No doubt he’ll say yes.” His crossed hands jiggle. “You’re kindred spirits, partners, meant-to-be, and all that. The yes is guaranteed.”  
  
Adam is warm, a recurring pattern on hearing this. He’ll combust when—if—Ronan says it himself.  
  
“We all use the same relationship words. You can just say—”  
  
“Fiancé?” Declan quips.  
  
Adam bites his bottom lip. Fiancé is a good word.  
  
Any acknowledgment of brotherly love for Declan always feels like a betrayal to Ronan, so Adam helps himself to three mints and leaves.

  
  
The telling part is not hard with Matthew; Adam didn’t anticipate it to be hard at all.  
  
He’s driving Matthew back to his dorm. “What do you think of Ronan and I getting married? If we were to do it?”  
  
“Oh Adam, you’re already my brother.”  
  
And that should be it, but Matthew keeps going.

“After he says yes, should we make our own handshake? Since it’ll be official and all that.”

When he gets home, Adam presses his face into Ronan’s neck for a very long time.

 

He sits down next to Opal and her dollhouse. It’s rarely ever the two of them alone in the apartment.  
  
“So. You know Ronan?”  
  
Opal sighs like this is a great burden. “Yes.”  
  
Adam grins, amused. “Well, I love him.”  
  
“Me too.” Opal sighs again.  
  
“I’m going to ask him to marry me.”  
  
Her face scrunches up slowly, from her mouth to her nose, till her eyes are squinted up. All that drama for, “I’ve heard this word before.”  
  
Adam did not prepare for the scenario of explaining marriage to her.  
  
She helpfully narrows it down. “Is it bad?”  
  
Memories, faded, but somehow never ceasing in their bitterness: a silence so miserable it crushes his head, clumps of pulled out hair and nails bitten down raw, screaming heard through paper-thin walls, sentences children shouldn’t have to understand.  
  
“For some people,” Adam admits. “Not for me and Ronan. I think it’ll be very good for us. The best.”  
  
“Will anything change?”  
  
He thinks about this too, even though the overarching answer is clear. “No.”  
  
“Then this was pointless,” Opal says in a voice so Ronan Lynch Adam wants to hug her close.  
  
He does.  
  
“I’ll make it up to you.” Adam gingerly picks up a decapitated Barbie head from the dollhouse. “I believe I won last round of Who Murdered Barbie?’”  
  
  
Ronan is the last to know, and the hardest to tell.  
  
They’re at the Barns, Opal already ran off, and Ronan has made it a point to make out on the porch, and then the couch for the past half-hour.  
  
“For old time’s sake,” Ronan explains even though Adam didn’t ask.  
  
He’s getting in the way of Adam’s goals, not that Adam is doing anything to deter him and a very important part of him urges Ronan’s lips to keep going lower.  
  
The ring box is empty, but he’s left it in his back pocket to keep his objective on the forefront in case of this exact, predictable situation.  
  
He moves the hand clutching at Ronan’s lower back to a more respectable place on his shoulder. “Wait.” He gives the slightest push and Ronan moves, sitting Adam up with him.  
  
His backpack is right next to the couch and he drags it over. He takes out the binder and places it on the coffee table.  
  
Ronan frowns. “I was kind of trying to fuck but—”  
  
“It’s important,” Adam interrupts, and Ronan goes silent.  
  
He flips to the first page, which is full of print-outs of Ronan’s snaps. He didn’t send them often. Adam touches a blurry one, with only his eyes in focus.  
  
“Adam?” Ronan touches his back; Adam barely feels it.  
  
_Drop the speech, just ask, just ask_.  
  
“This binder’s almost finished,” he says.  
  
He hopes for Ronan to say something filler for him to bounce off of. Ronan does not.  
  
“And we love each other.” He flips a few pages forward; it’s one of those sad, long letters. “I love you.”  
  
“And I love you.” Ronan’s face has gone stiff in the way it does when he’s hiding alarm.

So much for not freaking out.

Ronan flips a whole chunk of pages forward, to columns of movie tickets. Some dark pictures break up the pattern, shaky because Ronan always kisses Adam when he tries to take one.  
  
He brings his hand to the side of Ronan’s neck, the barest brush, and he doesn’t notice he’s trembling until Ronan covers his wrist with his hand, stilling him.  
  
“You remember when I first said I loved you?”  
  
Ronan rubs his back in comforting motions. “Of course.”  
  
“We both knew, yeah? That we loved each other, way before we even said it. But it was still really damn hard to say.”  
  
Ronan doesn’t speak for a long, treacherous moment. Then: “Adam. It’s only me.”

Adam exhales.

“It’s easy now, I say it all the time. I don’t know how it’s even possible, but I mean it more, every time I do.” Ronan squeezes his wrist, and he’s rambling a bit, but it’s fine, he’s figured out what to say now. “The thing I want to say to you, I’ve said it to some of our friends—kind of, actually not really—it’s like that, it’s so difficult to say, but I want it more every day—"  
  
“Adam.” And he thinks Ronan means for him to get to the point, but Ronan’s other hand is coming away from his back, and there’s a black, velvet box in it.

Adam freezes, how had he not felt that?  
  
His eyes flicker up to Adam for a second and return to the box. “What is this?”  
  
Ronan is lucky Adam loves him.  
  
He presses the heel of palm to his head. “God, you’re—Ronan Lynch. I just got on track.”  
  
“On track for what, Parrish?”  
  
Ronan is _so_ lucky Adam loves him.  
  
He flips to the last page of the binder, where the ring sits in a pop-up box. It’s a gold band with a diamond, simple except for the tiny, intricate, leafy indentations.  
  
Adam picks it up, holds it delicately between his thumb and index finger. “I wanted to start a new book.”  
  
“That’s for me?”  
  
“You can’t be serious.” He headbutts Ronan’s shoulder and just slumps against it. “No, it’s for my other lover.”  
  
Ronan laughs, breathless and eager.  
  
“This isn’t fucking Coraline, Parrish. Parrish?” Ronan tugs his hair until Adam is forced to lift his head.  
  
Adam gives him a bleary look. He hadn’t even remembered to get down on his knee.

Ronan kisses his cheek. “I know he’s emotionally available and sweet, but he’s the evil clone. He’s gonna steal your heart and soul and sew buttons in your eyes.”  
  
Adam picks up Ronan’s left hand.  
  
“You’re all of that and you’ve also done almost all those things.” And because there’s still some irritation left, he adds, “shithead.”  
  
“So you’re saying I’m the evil clone.”  
  
“I’ll let it slide if you marry me instead of sewing in those buttons.” He holds the ring close, barely over Ronan’s ring finger, and his hand is shaking even now, even with the answer in Ronan’s eyes. “Will you marry me?”

The words don't falter, and they leave him like they've been yearning to leave him.  
  
“Yeah,” Ronan says, like it’s so easy. “Yes.” Like it’s breathing.  
  
(Adam combusts. Metaphorically.)  
  
Ronan is smiling that seldom, soft at the edges, crooked smile. That _I love you too_ smile.  
  
“Yes?” Adam repeats, pressing their foreheads together, disbelieving because he knew but now he knows. He has half the mind to slide the ring on.  
  
Ronan cradles his face in both hands. “Was there going to be any other answer?”  
  
There wasn’t. Adam can only kiss him, again and again.  
  
“We can elope,” he blurts out since that seems to be his style these last two weeks. “I feel bad everyone knew before you.”  
  
“No fucking way, I’m making the biggest deal out of this. We’re gonna have a shitload of buttons.”  
  
Adam beams, weightless and euphoric. “I don’t mind.”  
  
Ronan pushes Adam’s hair up and sweeps kisses along his hairline. “And you’re wrong.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“I always knew first.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Take care and stay safe during the holidays everyone <3


End file.
